Archer to Beauty:  why didn't you tell me  they hatch?

very funny, Jeanne!! hahahahaha
...he's learned a lot of things in the last couple of months.
Now i'm trying to picture exactly how she would have warned him about that.

I love that story. I have repeated it several times as an illustration of falcons training their young. I forgot that the second time the pigeon fell into the stadium!!!  I would have loved to see that!

Shaky named Grissom, but what did Grissom name?

The answer is in Chris (yes, screech owl Chris) Johnson's blog post for July 8:
http://chriswjohnson.blogspot.com/

Dale

that's GREAT. Thanks so much for the link. I wanted to see how that worked! It hovered, realized, "hey, if that worked fine, we're in business," and then just LEFT. Unimaginable.

Excellent (especially if no one in the extended family has head lice)!
thank you, Ginha!!!

YOU MEAN THOSE CLIFFS ARE NOT THERE???

that is totally insane.
I like.

A wonderful sight to behold, indeed!   

Janet, I know you've watched a lot of ospreys - have you ever seen a fledge?  It must be different than some other birds, I imagine, because of that lifting-off-and-hovering thing...

super cool about the fata morgana, Paul. I am fascinated. Wikipedia:

A Fata Morgana is an unusual and very complex form of mirage, a form of superior mirage, which, like many other kinds of superior mirages, is seen in a narrow band right above the horizon...
Fata Morgana mirages tremendously distort the object or objects which they are based on, such that the object often appears to be very unusual, and may even be transformed in such a way that it is completely unrecognizable. ... This kind of mirage can involve almost any kind of distant object, including such things as boats, islands, and coastline...Fata Morgana is not only complex, but also rapidly changing. The mirage comprises several inverted (upside down) and erect (right side up) images that are stacked on top of one another. Fata Morgana mirages also show alternating compressed and stretched zones....This optical phenomenon occurs because rays of light are strongly bent when they pass through air layers of different temperatures in a steep thermal inversion where an atmospheric duct has formed.

too much!!! thanks!!! your photo of it is a good one!! I am especially interested in the facts that things appear rapidly changing and a combination of right-side-up and inverted, stacked up, etc...

dale

These pictures are just adorable!  How cute they are!!!  Interesting about the fireworks. 

the fireworks at that location are insane - between two small lakeside parks, megatons of illicit fireworks...the smell of 4th of July gunpowder actually blocks out the smell of 4th of July marijuana from the same parks. The ground shakes from these MORTARS. So I was always terrified for the newly-fledged barn swallows, imagining them being flushed and flying around in the dark. They seem to just hunker down on their cables and pipes, though.

thanks, donna. those share links always are SO weird. Glad at least the one worked. And sometimes they still seem to sign one in as other people, don't they? that was gross. I removed the other.

sounds great, thanks; and sounds like he's healing fast. I would assume that at rehab they'll know when he is really ready to go --  and the sooner the better!

The photo of J with water droplets on his head is hilarious and very lovely. Unfortunately it also reminded of me of something ... at about 1:25 in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ERAV57bqaU

Anyway, thank you to all of the caring people who have worked together to help J.

Thanks, Ei. So many of those birds haven't been banded!

This year I got to watch parts of barn swallows' breeding - I used to live in a building that had nests on it that the birds returned to every year to nest - I think I posted an album of them a few years ago; here is 2005-2006-2007; cuteness warning is definitely in effect:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=389666315506%3A685808627&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=eMail-_-Share-_-Photos-_-Sharee

I still have a friend living in that building (besides the swallows) and although some stupid tuckpointers tore down the traditional nest, the swallows have built in a different location on the same building. When the eggs and chicks are still in the next, the adults sleep very close by at night, and very visible - then, after fledging, you walk right under/next to pipes and cables with shish-kebabs of sleeping fledgling barn swallows (they don't have much of a tail yet, when they first come out of the nest).

Nora and I exchanged barn swallow stories and pictures for a while - she had them too!

have a good weekend, all

dale

lovely portrait!
that's an unbanded juvenile...do we know whose it is?

(photo by Chad+Chris Saladin).

Can you believe that photograph? I don't remember ever seeing the whole prey bird so clearly in a food transfer shot. And I don't know if that's surprise or what on the face of that juvenile, but something is going on.
I assume lots of noise.
Chad and Chris are way, way too much...thanks for posting that, Donna.

dale